Our Friend the Electron

The electron is an odd little thing. We are told that it is the basis of all things electronic, computers, TVs, DVDs, etc. yet no one really knows just what an electron is. While there are elaborate and outrageously detailed descriptions of what it does, there is no cogent and convincing description of what it is. The electron is a genuine mystery.
It's not even
possible to know where one is and where it is going at the same time. It's just a little fuzz ball of probability, areas where it is likely to be and places it might be going.

Even so, the world of Man has become totally dependent on the insubstantial little electron. There is a considerable body of evidence emerging that the devices that employ the electron are really just channels through which we invoke the quantum powers underlying the universe itself. The conventional descriptions given to the lay public and taught in the classrooms are merely a pedagogical convenience, a means of communicating information about processes that don't really exist
(More on this, here).

These methods rely on the fact that humans prefer linear logic where information is wholly sequential and predictable. The illusion of linearity is cultivated because textbooks are required to have a ordered structure: Table of Contents, Bibliographies, Foot Notes, Appendices and Indexes, chapters, page numbers and so on. To satisfy this requirement, knowledge is packaged in tidy units as if the universe the text "explains" is likewise a hierarchical structure, neatly ordered for our convenience.

The truth is much less malleable than our representation of it. The universe conceals far more than our discoveries reveal and certainly more than our hubris admits to. Mysteries exist because their resolution have unwelcome consequences and persist because we deny their existence.

One such mystery is the electron. This little packet of stuff is not real, it doesn't actually occupy space or time, it is a mathematical entity, a thing that exists because theory requires it. Before they were posited, there were no such things and the universe got along just fine anyway. Because the electron exists only to satisfy a particular view of the nature of the universe
, it depends entirely on the strength of those beliefs for its power.

There was a time, long before men thought themselves omniscient, when people knew a universe of "powers" and "forces" and "entities", a place where intelligence and purpose inhabited every little corner and niche. It was believed that everything either possessed in itself or was connected to one of these powers.

One gaining mastery over one of the powers could cause events to occur that would not otherwise and stop events that were destined to occur in the absence of their intervention. There were several ways these people went about doing this. There was incantation where one called out the power using special words spoken a special way. There was the combining of various odds and ends that would enable changes of various kinds and there was ritual that would obligate a power to do this or that.

The great mistake of these people in those times is that they kept their discoveries secret so that the same things were done many times, over many generations. There just weren't enough people working on the same problem to ensure any consistent successes. The success of modern science is not that the descriptions of reality are more accurate or precise or correct but that there are many more people involved in investigating each question being asked. These people agree with each other for the most part so that there is the appearance of certainty in their pronouncements.

A "fact" is not about the thing studied but the consensus of those studying it. The reality of reality is that everything is only appearance. More specifically, reality is how things appear to us, to human beings. We are, after all, the only ones interested. The electron exists not because it's there but because someone was looking for it. There is, for example, a species of electron that exists only in the southern hemisphere. This electron has the unusual property of turning blue and ceasing all motion as if frozen.

This behavior is entirely random. The Paraguay Telephone Company implemented this electron since its erratic behavior made it unsuitable for other uses and electricity generated using this electron was therefore less expensive. The PTA sold this technology to a U.S. corporation which incorporated it into their product line. The corporation, who I will not name here (its initials are, Microsoft) and the products it created (Windows Operating Systems) was able to prove that the behavior of this electron at the atomic level could be duplicated in their products. They called this a "feature".
The significance of all this is that, since an electron owes its existence to our perception of it, its properties are variable.

While PAC and the un-named U.S. corporation (Microsoft) will vehemently deny the existence of the Blue Electron, their denial has no effect on its existence because they know better. There are many other instances of electrons being modified to suit a particular need. There is the Red Electron used in TV remote controls and CD players, the Gray Electron used in dimmer switches and volume controls, The Green Electron used in those self-flushing urinals and many other electron types.

Once the electron is believed into existence, unbelief has no effect on its continued existence; it actually exists from it inception unto forever.

The electron used in the computers is specialized as well. An electronic circuit is a kind of maze through which the electron must pass. As the electron progresses through this maze it begins to "learn" its position and is able to advance more quickly through the remainder of the maze.

This increase in the Maze Rate is exponential so that by the time the electron has passed through the first half of the maze the remainder of its journey exceeds the speed of light. This is why electrons are introduced into a computer where the maze is simplest, the Power Supply. Experimenters discovered a unique power source of immense potential using this "Thinking Electron". Rather than introducing the electron flow into the simplest part of the computer circuitry, they connected it to the most complex circuit: the Esc key on the keyboard.

As expected the electrons quickly learned the maze and the Maze Rate began to increase. By the time the electrons reached the power supply their increase in speed was such that their increase in mass (recall E=MC^2) was equivalent to over 4500 X 10^9 camels. This much mass confined to the volume of an electron is simply not allowed by any known Law of Physics. These electrons congealed in to a small Black Hole that immediately consumed all matter within 100m (the exact distance limit allowed for an Ethernet Segment), all the tables, the chairs, the desks, grad students and Principal Investigators fell into the event horizon.

This experience led to very stern warning labels on all electronic devices to ensure that small black holes would not proliferate. Fortunately this phenomenon has been limited, so far, to just a few research laboratories so the risk of annihilation is quite small.There is yet another aspect to the existence of the electron but I hesitate to publish it here. Since an electron is believed into existence, the power of belief is the only power in the universe and all other powers are merely derivative.